Balls: learn from the right?
The Financial Times reports that one European state has broken ranks with the neo-liberal consensus and started Keynesian policies of extra state spending rather than cuts to deal with the crisis. It is... the solidly right-wing government in Sweden. It has announced plans to spend SKr23bn to boost growth, and said it will invest more if the downturn gets worse. Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt says he can do it because Sweden’s debt and deficit levels are much lower than others’. But if he’s right (as he is) that extra state spending can help drag capitalist economies out of recession...